


the waiting game

by heartsighed



Category: NU'EST, Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Volleyball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-05-24 10:45:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14953185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsighed/pseuds/heartsighed
Summary: This is how the story goes: in Jonghyun’s second year of high school, the tiny Pledis High boys' volleyball team gets propelled into the spotlight when they win the regional championships.It takes graduating and moving on with their lives for Jonghyun to really see where he stands with his best friend.





	the waiting game

**Author's Note:**

> hello this is my first time writing nu'est and it got a lot longer than i expected it to be.. this started out as an exercise in a kind of new writing style for me so it does get a little rambly in parts, but overall i think i'm pretty satisfied with it? anyway, i projected a LOT in this fic, so hopefully y'all enjoy it!!!
> 
> warnings: mentions of sex (pretty brief, mostly jokes etc)

On the first Friday of the new school term, Jonghyun is slowly calcifying in his introductory physics lecture when his phone blows up with texts.

“What the fuck,” Seongwoo whispers, looking up from where he’s slumped over a notebook, spinning his pen absently in his hand. “Did you secretly replace your phone with a vibrator or something?”

Jonghyun, who’s busy trying to keep his mouth closed so he won’t drool when he inevitably falls asleep on his desk, doesn’t answer.

After class, he waves goodbye to Seongwoo as he sprints to a study group meeting, and it’s only then that he checks his notifications and sees that he has over two hundred unread messages. They’re all from a group chat that he honestly thought he’d already deleted from his phone. (That’s a lie; Jonghyun is a sentimental sap who can’t even bear to throw out the ticket stubs from all the times he and Minhyun rode the swan boats in the lake near their high school. There are exactly thirty-eight tickets and he keeps them paper-clipped together in the corner of his drawer. Or at least he thinks they’re still in his drawer. Minki said he saw them wedged behind the couch cushions last week. Anyway, he didn’t throw them away.)

The latest notifications read:

_Minki (12:13 pm): so yeah long story short my big toe is forever imprinted on his left asscheek now_

_Jeonghan (12:14 pm): Did u fuck him_

_Minki (12:15 pm): god no of course not_

_Minki (12:15 pm): he couldn’t even sit down properly afterwards do u think he was in any shape to take it up the ass_

_Minki (12:16 pm): i still have his number tho do u think i should?_

_Jihoon (12: 21 pm): Jesus Christ_

Jonghyun closes his eyes for a moment as he reaches the crosswalk and waits for the walk sign to light up. He pinches his nose-bridge, willing his headache to subside. It doesn’t work.

He scrolls up. The earliest notifications read:

_Soonyoung (11:32 am): hye guys guess what this whole chat is in college now!11!!!1!!11!_

_Soonyoung (11:32 am): anw everyones finishing up hteir first week so does anyone in the area want to meet up to eat????_

_Wonwoo (11:33 am): Did u seriously take the time to type out the ones on ur phone_

_Aaron (11:35 am): Yes, I haven’t seen you all in forever! Let’s go out for dinner next Thursday!_

When Jonghyun gets home, he sees Minki sprawled upside-down on his bed, one leg up on the wall. He’s typing furiously on his phone, the tip of his tongue poking out as he squints at the screen.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this ass-tattoo guy?” Jonghyun asks as he goes to hang up his coat and scarf.

“I did,” Minki pauses just long enough to fix him with a judgmental eye, “You were too hopped up on caffeine and stress to pay attention.”

“I think I’d remember if you told me a story like that, even if I was a little distracted.”

“It was the week that you had to finish that twenty-page paper and drank all of Aaron-hyung’s coffee.”

Jonghyun pauses and makes a face. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Minki turns back to his phone. “Anyway, Minhyun came by earlier to drop off your calculator.”

“He took my calculator?” Jonghyun roots around the pile of papers in his desk. “Where’d he leave it?”

Minki shrugs. “Who knows. Call him.”

“Weren’t you in here when he came?”

“Yeah, but I was busy telling Jeonghan the ass-tattoo story.”

Jonghyun groans and dials his phone, setting it on speaker as he continues to shuffle his papers around. Minhyun picks up on the second ring.

“Hey, Jonghyun,” he says, sounding slightly breathless.

Jonghyun frowns, “Are you late to econ again? Doesn’t your professor take attendance?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Minki told me you came and dropped off my calculator?”

“Oh! Yeah, I left it under your pillow. It’s the only clean place I could find.”

“Shut up,” Jonghyun lifts his comforter and—aha, there it is, “Thanks, you shouldn’t have come right before class. Now you’re going to be late again.”

“Of course I did. I’m not going to have time to drop by again by until Tuesday.”

Jonghyun turns the calculator absently in his hands, rubbing at his name written messily in Sharpie on the back. “You could’ve just kept it until then.”

Minhyun snorts. “Yeah, no. You need it for your quiz on Monday, remember?”

“Oh yeah.”

Minhyun laughs. “‘Oh yeah,’” he mimics in a bad imitation of Jonghyun’s raspy voice, “You really need to remember your class schedule better. Okay, I actually have to go now.”

“Okay, run safely,” Jonghyun says, and Minhyun laughs again.

“See you Tuesday. Wait—hold the door!”

Jonghyun ends the call and looks up to see Minki raising an eyebrow at him.

“What?” he asks, but Minki just rolls his eyes.

 

On Thursday, Minki wheedles Dongho into driving them all down to the ramen place that they decided on for dinner. Their apartment is close enough that they would’ve only had to take a ten-minute bus ride, but Minki scoffs at the idea.

“What’s the point of taking germy public transportation when you have a housemate with a car?”

“I can hear you,” Dongho says peevishly, flexing his hands on the wheel. Traffic always makes him snappy. “You’re literally sitting in the seat right next to mine.”

“Yeah, I know,” Minki shoots back. “I fought hard for this aux cord; I’m not going to forget anytime soon.”

“I bet Jonghyun’s stomach isn’t going to forget anytime soon, either,” Dongho mutters. “You nearly nailed him in the solar plexus when he tried to get on.”

Jonghyun’s mild, “Thanks, Dongho,” is drowned out by Minki’s strident reply.

Jonghyun tunes out the bickering as his phone begins to vibrate in his pocket.

“Guys, wait,” he says, except Minki and Dongho are still screeching at one another in the front, and the words just kind of flop out of his mouth.

“Guys!” he raises his voice until they quiet down. “Shut up for a moment, Seungcheol’s calling.”

He taps the call.

“Hey, where are you guys?” Seungcheol’s voice sounds tinny as it filters through layers of ambiguously cheerful pop. “We just got a table.”

“Two minutes away,” Dongho raises his voice so Seungcheol can hear. “But it might be a little longer if parking’s bad.”

“Okay, drive safely,” Seungcheol says, as someone begins screaming in the background. “Oops, I gotta go handle that.”

He hangs up before Jonghyun can say goodbye.

“Is Minhyun coming?” Dongho asks as he backs into a parking spot.

Jonghyun shrugs. “Dunno. I haven’t seen him in weeks.”

Minki gives him a weird look. “Didn’t you meet up on Tuesday?”

Jonghyun shakes his head. “He was busy, so we rescheduled for next week.”

“Hm.” Minki turns back to his phone.

They’re the last ones to get to the restaurant, it turns out. Aaron and Minhyun are already sitting in the far corner of the table, organizing the plates so they fit better on the table. Seungcheol’s wrangling Seungkwan and Seokmin when they walk in, but he manages to shoot them a wave. Jonghyun winces at Soonyoung’s shout, but he gives all his old underclassmen hugs as they pile around the new arrivals.

“Why are there babies here?” Minki asks as he sits down.

“I’m a _senior_ now, hyung,” Seokmin tells him, and Minki nods.

“Yeah, like I said, why are there babies here?”

“We had a half-day at school,” Seungkwan pouts. “Hyung, aren’t you happy to see me?”

Jonghyun turns away as the conversation devolves into Minki cooing. They’ve already ordered and some of the food is on the table, still steaming, and he can feel his stomach rumbling with excitement.

“God, I’m hungry,” he says, moving to sit next to Minhyun.

“Wait, that’s Seokmin’s seat,” Minhyun says, putting his hand down on the chair, and the table quiets a little.

“I can move, hyung—,” Seokmin starts, but Jonghyun quickly shakes his head.

“No, no, I’ll sit next there,” he says, pointing at the empty chair next to Wonwoo.

“Really, I can move,” Seokmin repeats, holding up his hands in a placating gesture.

 “Come on, Seokminnie, I haven’t seen you in _forever_ ,” Minhyun wheedles, “I meet up with Jonghyun every week.”

“Are you sure?” Seokmin looks stricken and at this point, everyone’s staring at the empty seat and it’s making Jonghyun feel a little weird.

“He’s right,” Jonghyun forces himself to say, plopping down next to Wonwoo. “Besides, why would I want to talk to Minhyun when I could be catching up with our precious dongsaengs instead?”

He throws a teasing smile at Minhyun before he can take offense, and to his relief, Minhyun laughs back and wrinkling his nose in mock anger. After another moment, the chatter hesitantly starts up again.

 

“Minhyun’s avoiding you,” Minki says. He wiggles his grasshopper legs on the bed.

“No, he’s not,” Jonghyun says evenly. “He’s just busy.”

“He’s also running out of legitimate-sounding excuses,” MInki shrugs. “I mean, theoretical game theory study group for the _fourth_ time this week? Does he really need to study that much for one class?”

“Yeah, actually, he’s kind of failing,” Jonghyun points out, but Minki just snorts.

“This is hilarious,” Minki says with a scowl that indicates it’s clearly not. “All the kids think you’re some kind of superhuman authority figure, but when it comes to Minhyun, you’re dumber than a rock.”

“I’m not a superhuman authority figure,” Jonghyun frowns.

“Well, _I_ know that,” Minki rolls his eyes. “But I’ve known you since we were in diapers. You can’t deny that there wasn’t hero worship involved.”

Jonghyun sighs. “You know I hate it when you guys talk about me like that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Minki softens a little. “Still, you have to admit Minhyun’s been spending less with you this year.”

“He’s just busy,” Jonghyun says again, but he doesn’t really believe it.

 

\--

 

This is how the story goes: in Jonghyun’s second year of high school, the tiny Pledis High boys’ volleyball team gets propelled into the spotlight when they win the regional championships. The next two years are a whirlwind of practice, tournaments, and interviews by both the school and local newspapers.

For all the tears and hardships and drama that littered his high school years, Jonghyun graduates with little fanfare. He gets accepted to a nearby university, just close enough to visit his parents once or twice a month, and moves into the freshman dorms with Minki as his roommate.

He doesn’t touch volleyballs much after that, and it’s okay.

 

\--

 

It’s not like Jonghyun doesn’t notice when Minhyun starts pulling away. He’s used to seeing the nuances of Minhyun’s moods through that soothing smile that he puts on for everyone else.

If he had to pinpoint an exact time, Jonghyun would say he noticed something was wrong the first time he talked to Minhyun after a summer abroad. Minhyun had gone to Shanghai on an exchange program, and he called Jonghyun as soon as he got back to Seoul.

He didn't act weird or anything during their conversation, but that was the last time he called Jonghyun the whole semester. He still answers Jonghyun’s calls and messages him regularly, but there isn’t as much back-and-forth as before.

They’re still friends who text each other and meet up on a regular basis, but they’re not really Jonghyun-and-Minhyun anymore.

 

Jonghyun and Minki wake up on Saturday morning to a blaring call from Jisung.

“Do you want to go out with me and some of the guys tonight?” he asks in a tone that is much too chipper for before noon.

Jonghyun moans and buries his face in his pillow, setting him on speaker so he can repeat the question to Minki.

“Yes!” Minki rips the phone out of Jonghyun’s hand. “Yes, hyung, oh my god, it’s been so long since I last went out.”

Jisung laughs. “Okay, gotcha. Minhyun says he’s coming too, by the way.”

“Minhyun’s with you right now?”

“Yeah, Sungwoon hosted a study session at our place last night, and a few of the guys ended up staying over last night. I’ll come pick you two up at six, then?”

“I love you, hyung,” Minki gushes into the phone. His tone changes immediately when Jisung hangs up. “So what do you think? Minhyun had a study session at Jisung’s place, and he didn’t even tell you?”

Jonghyun moans again and squishes his face further into his pillow.

“Do you think he’s fucking anyone in his study group?”

“ _No_ ,” Jonghyun says, muffled. “Minki, go back to sleep.”

“It’s almost twelve.”

“Exactly.”

“So, what do you think?” Something pokes Jonghyun in the thigh. “What’s up with Minhyun?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Jonghyun groans, flipping over and sitting up. “I’m up, happy?”

“Yeah, fucking finally,” Minki huffs, “I’m starving, and I need to get my work done if we’re going out tonight.”

“So you really want to go?” Jonghyun says as he pulls on a stretched-out sweater over his pajamas.

“Yeah, Jisung-hyung invited us,” Minki says. “Why wouldn’t we go?”

“I don’t know, don’t you think Minhyun would’ve called us himself if he actually wanted us to come?” Jonghyun fumbles with the hem of his sweater.

“Jonghyun, are _you_ avoiding _Minhyun_?” Minki asks, narrowing his eyes.

Jonghyung makes a face. “No! I just think he’s been meeting new people and he’s busy with them a lot and wouldn’t it be weird if we inserted ourselves into his friend group when we don’t even know some of them?”

“Jonghyun, you’re thinking too much,” Minki huffs. “You know Minhyun and Jisung and Seongwoo. Isn’t that good enough? Just show up and if Minhyun doesn’t like it, he can tell you himself.”

“I don’t know if I want that to happen,” Jonghyun says doubtfully. “What if he gets mad?”

“Then he gets mad and yells at you and you can talk it out properly like the adults you are,” Minki shrugs. “It’s about time this radio silence you’ve got going on came to an end.”

“We’re not fighting,” Jonghyun says, and Minki rolls his eyes.

“I know. That’s why it’s weird.”

 

Minhyun clearly isn’t expecting to see him when they show up in the back of Jisung’s car. He hesitates for a brief second before giving Jonghyun an affectionate hug.

“Jisung-hyung didn’t tell me you were coming,” he says.

Jonghyun resists the urge to bury his face in Minhyun’s shoulder and breathe in the subtle cologne from his best friend’s skin. “Yeah, he invited us this morning.” He looks up. “Are you wearing eyeshadow?”

“Yeah, does it look funny?” Minhyun blinks a little self-consciously. The thick eyeliner and sparkling shadow make his thin eyes look even longer than normal. “It’s more than I’m used to.”

“No, you look good,” Jonghyun says, admiring the way the glitter catches the light in the club.

Minhyun smiles. “Thanks. You look good, too.”

Jonghyun bites his lip, tasting the artificial sweetness of his lip tint. Minhyun blinks again.

“I want to itch my face,” he admits, and Minhyun’s eyes crinkle into a laugh.

For a split second, he feels comfortable again. It’s like nothing’s changed. Everything’s okay again, except—

—except, when he looks up again, smiling just a little bit wider, Minhyun’s already drawing away, resting his hand on their table instead of Jonghyun’s elbow, even though they’re sitting so close to each other.

 _You’re reading too much into it_ , Jonghyun tells himself, but Minki’s sitting down across the table, shooting him a questioning look.

“So you know how Dongho had that job at that camp for middle schoolers that Nayoung recommended,” Jonghyun says in a desperate attempt to pull Minhyun back into the conversation. “She asked me if I wanted to teach weekend classes this semester! I told her it’s been a while since I touched a volleyball, but she said that it was okay. Did you know Dongho’s been working with the Pledis girls’ team all the time? Anyway, she asked—” he’s rambling, fuck, “—she asked if you wanted to join, too, and I just thought—”

“I think I’m going to go dance with Seongwoo,” Minhyun says, biting his lip and peering into the crowd.

“Oh, okay.” Jonghyun tries not to deflate visibly. “So would you want to drop by one of these weekends? Dongho and Nayoung will be there too.”

Minhyun’s expression tightens by just the slightest bit—enough that Jonghyun can’t fool himself into thinking it’s not there—and he smiles a little half-heartedly before shaking his head.

“I don’t think I’m going to have the time this semester.”

“Okay, that’s alright,” Jonghyun pats his leg. “I know your schedule’s busy.”

“Thanks, Jonghyun,” Minhyun smiles softly, and this time, it’s a little bit more genuine. “We’re still on for breakfast next week, right?”

“Of course,” Jonghyun swallows. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Jonghyun watches his back until he’s swallowed up by the crowd.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Minki says from across the table.

 

\--

 

The thing is, the story starts a long time before Jonghyun’s second year. If he thinks back—far, far back—he finds he can remember the exact day. It’s spring, a day with fair weather, and Jonghyun is sweaty because all boys in middle school are sweaty for some reason or another.

His heart beats a nervous pitter in his chest and he wonders if he’ll get booted right out of the gym for looking so lame. Minki told him to bring kneepads, but all the older boys are bare-kneed because they’re too cool to wear protective gear.

Jonghyun can’t help but resent Minki, who had forgotten his own at home that morning. He feels like he’s attracting stares. The kneepads are thick and a glaring, shiny white. The padding has yet to soften and mold to the bend of his knees, and they make him clumsy and stiff-jointed.

He looks down and fists his hands in his gym shorts and, just as he’s about to bolt back into the locker room to take them off, another pair of enormous white monstrosities step into his field of vision.

He looks up into a tentative smile.

“Hwang Minhyun,” the boy says, holding out a hand to shake, “Looks like I’m not the only one who missed the memo, huh?”

The thing is, if you asked Jonghyun what really began in this moment, he probably wouldn’t be able to answer in just words.

 

\--

 

Jonghyun is a coward, normally. He hates confrontation, and he especially hates it when he fights with his friends. However, Jonghyun is Jonghyun and he knows conflict resolution like the back of his hand after handling pubescent teenage athletes for three years of high school.

It takes a few days, but he manages to corner Minhyun when he gets out of class the next Wednesday. Minhyun is surprisingly normal when he sees him.

“Oh, Jonghyun!” A wide smile spreads across his face, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. “You didn’t tell me you were going to be on campus.”

“Are you mad at me?” Jonghyun blurts.

Minhyun looks baffled. “What? Why would I be mad at you?”

“You’re—,” Jonghyun frowns. “You’re not mad at me?”

“No, why? Did I say something?” Minhyun digs his phone out of his jeans. “What did we last talk about over text?”

“No,” Jonghyun says lamely. “No, I just—I haven’t really seen you around lately.”

“Oh,” Minhyun’s eyes widen, the smile dropping for a concerned look. “God, I’m sorry, Jonghyun, I’ve just been so busy. I never meant to make you feel like I was avoiding you or anything.”

Jonghyun flusters, waving his hands. “No, no, I don’t want to guilt-trip you. Sorry, god, that makes me sound really needy.”

“You’re not needy,” Minhyun’s eyes soften. “I’m sorry I made you feel like I’ve been ignoring you. I do have to go now, though.”

Jonghyun blinks at the change of topic. “What?”

“Sorry, I have to meet with my study group,” Minhyun says, “We couldn’t get our report finished, so we agreed to meet up again.”

“Oh, okay,” Jonghyun licks his lips, forcing a smile.

“Hey, I’m really sorry,” Minhyun says, shuffling his feet like he doesn’t know if he should step forward or step back. “I’m not mad, though. I’ll see you on Saturday for breakfast, okay?”

And then he runs off before Jonghyun can even say goodbye.

 

It’s one of the worst feelings in the world to watch people you used to be close to slowly drift away. Jonghyun was never a clinger like Minki, and he doesn’t really know what to do when his points of contact with Minhyun dwindle to Saturday morning breakfasts every two weeks and the occasional time Minhyun drops by their apartment when he’s in the area, which is almost never.

They're still friends, of course. Minhyun never stands him up for a breakfast date, and it never feels uncomfortable or distant when they do meet up to eat. It’s just—Jonghyun kind of misses being able to see Minhyun’s face every day, and he misses hearing Minhyun’s distinctive fake-toy laugh in person, and none of his other friends give the comforting hugs that Minhyun gives when he’s really feeling down.

“Just ask him to spend more time with you,” Minki says when Jonghyun tells him about it, but it’s not that easy.

He doesn’t want to sound desperate and needy, like he’s the only one holding on when Minhyun’s already getting on with his own life, making new friends and seeing new things. It feels lonely to watch his best friend grow up without him, but he’s too scared to say anything about it, so he doesn’t.

 

\--

 

What people forget—what a lot of them don’t even know—is that at the start of the season, in the beginning of their second year, Nayoung finds Jonghyun crouching behind the gym, knuckles pressed into his eye-sockets hard enough to hurt.

“I don’t want to be captain anymore,” Jonghyun sobs.

She doesn’t say a word, but she hunkers down on the concrete next to him and waits until he’s done crying. The next day, she corners Seungcheol in the locker room and tells him that they’re voting on a co-captain, stat.

Jonghyun loves her for that, still. Even after they stabilized—even after Seungcheol came to shoulder the burden with him—she was always there, understanding. Each of them was alone in some way—Jonghyun in his insecurity, Seungcheol in his constant struggle with his knee, and Nayoung in the burden of supporting all the younger girls by herself—but they had each other when it was hard.

He never tells Minhyun about that time behind the gym. It’s one of the only things he doesn’t share with his best friend, and he doesn’t know if he regrets it or not. There’s a part of him that would break, he thinks, if Minhyun knew the way that he had rasped, over and over and over, “It’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s _my_ fault—”

That’s a secret that Nayoung has been kind enough to keep for him, even after all these years.

 

The thing is, before Jonghyun was co-captain of the two-time regional champions, he wasn’t a good captain at all. He wasn’t even all that good at volleyball.

Before the team was a real team—before Jisoo and Jeonghan joined and Seungcheol’s knee healed—when Jonghyun was still a pimply first year who grew too little for how much he ate, he got voted captain because there wasn’t anyone else in their team who really wanted to do it. He still remembers stretching in a tiny circle of five in the corner of the gym while Seungcheol sprawled against the side of the bleachers with his crutches, waiting for the basketball team to finish practice. They’d all clapped him on the back and mumbled quick congratulations, and that had been it.

It hadn’t seemed important at the time, really. They didn’t have a coach, their club advisor was retiring the next year, and they couldn’t even play in an official game since Seungcheol could barely walk on his bad knee. In the very beginning, it was just Jonghyun, Seuncheol, Dongho, Minki, Minhyun, and Aaron, the only one of them who had actually been around when they’d had other members.

 

\--

  

The weekend before midterms, Jonghyun and Seongwoo hole themselves up in a library study room with a pan of brownies, courtesy of Aaron, and a twelve-pack of energy drinks, courtesy of Seongwoo’s boyfriend.

“Make sure he doesn’t drink all of it at once,” a harried-looking Daniel tells Jonghyun before he rushes off to his own study group.

It takes about half a day for the brownie pan to run out, at which point they order a pizza, half without sauce for Jonghyun. It’s a bit tricky to sneak the pizza through the front doors, but Seongwoo apparently has a lot of experience with getting food delivered to the campus libraries, and he manages to smuggle it in, box and all. They sprawl on the carpet as they eat, textbooks spread in front of them.

“So what’s up with you and Minhyun?” Seongwoo asks through a mouthful of pizza.

Jonghyun makes a face at the sight of a mass of half-chewed food before he registers the question. “What do you mean?”

“Aren’t you guys, like, fighting right now?” Seongwoo asks.

“No,” Jonghyun says slowly, drawing out the word. “What makes you think so?”

“Well, you haven’t texted him once since he got here,” Seongwoo points out.

“How do you know that?” Jonghyun squints.

“You have a different text tone for him.”

“Oh, yeah.” Jonghyun takes another bite of pizza. “He’s just busy. I think he has, like, three exams this week.”

Seongwoo raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t he go out clubbing with Jisung-hyung the other night?”

“I was there for a little bit, yes. Also, that was, like, a month ago,” Jonghyun tells him.

“Wait, really?” Seongwoo checks the date on his phone. “Huh. Still, it’s a little weird that you don’t have his midterms schedule memorized.”

“I’m not his handler,” Jonghyun says, ignoring the icy pit that’s starting to form in his stomach.

Seongwoo snorts, “Yeah, right. If anything, he’d be your handler.”

Jonghyun smacks him, but not hard because he’s still holding half a slice of pizza.

“Is it really that odd that I haven’t gotten a text from him? Everyone's busy with exams, and Daniel hasn’t messaged you since he came by with two days ago.”

“Not really. Just, you guys were all over each other last year, you know?”

Jonghyun makes a face. “That makes it sound weird.”

“It wasn’t weird. It was just—,” Seongwoo makes a thoughtful face, “—intimate.”

“Weird,” Jonghyun repeats, hitting him again.

Seongwoo swats back at him and they finish their pizza and get back to work.

 

The Friday after his last midterm, Jonghyun stumbles across campus to the parking lot nearest the journalism building and nearly drifts off on a bench before Aaron finds him and tows him home. He flops straight onto the couch and sleeps for a whopping fourteen hours and wakes up to find Minhyun making pancakes and chatting with his housemates in the kitchen.

Aaron and Jisoo spot him first, greeting him with smiles. Jeonghan, who’s still half asleep in Jisoo’s lap, only manages a grunt.

“You’re finally up,” Minhyun says, drizzling more batter into the pan. “Do you want chocolate chips in yours?”

“Yes, please,” Jonghyun says, moving to sit across from Jisoo at the table.

“You’re not busy, right?” Minhyun asks, frowning a little, and Jonghyun quickly shakes his head.

“Thanks for the food,” Jonghyun says.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been here,” Jisoo says, smiling, “We’re glad to host you.”

“He’s just saying that because he’s not making the food,” Aaron puts in.

“You’re not making the food, either,” Minhyun points out.

“Yeah, but I bought the chocolate chips and drove Jonghyun here, so I’ve already contributed to the hosting.”

Minhyun drops a heaping plate in front of Jonghyun, swatting at Jeonghan’s hands before he can snag the pancake on top.

It’s nice like this, seeing him in person rather than talking on the phone. He makes pancakes for everyone else and then, when he’s done, he takes off his apron and sits down on the chair next to Jonghyun’s and picks the chocolate chips off his pancakes as he talks about his projects and exams.

“Were they good?” Minhyun asks when he’s polished off the whole plate plus a glass of milk.

Jonghyun nods, slumping back in his chair. “I could probably pass out on your couch for another ten hours, I ate so much,” he admits.

Minhyun laughs, almost too hard for a remark that can’t be that funny. When he finally quiets down, there’s something in his expression that makes Jonghyun’s chest squeeze a little, in a good way.

“I’m glad,” he says, smiling.

 

\--

 

They all cry the first time it happens, even Minki, who had told them all brazenly before the match that he would rather die than ruin his eyeliner. Dongho can barely speak and Aaron’s long flung his clipboard for stats to the side. Jeonghan is clutching Minki’s uniform so hard Jonghyun thinks it might stretch. Jihoon has his head bowed, one hand pulling his collar up to hide his eyes and the other stretched around Soonyoung’s shoulders, and Junhui pins Wonwoo into the group hug with a firm hold. The freshmen are screaming and Jisoo has his face buried in Seungcheol’s neck and Seuncheol is clinging to Jonghyun’s shoulder, sobbing in his ear, “We did it, we did it, we did it, we—”

At the center of them all, Minhyun has his arms wrapped tightly around Jonghyun’s neck, standing right where he’d been when the ball fell and the bench came surging in around them like a tidal wave of bodies.

Jonghyun feels lightheaded and dazed long after Minhyun releases his chokehold, long after they shake hands with their opponents and shuffle off the court to be interviewed. He barely manages to cough a stilted reply into the microphone shoved under his nose, and he can only hope Seungcheol’s response is more coherent because he doesn’t remember a single word that comes out of either of their mouths.

It’s an hour’s drive home because of traffic, and Jonghyun has never felt so tired and buzzed in his life. He falls asleep on the bus to the raucous sound of the rowdy freshmen, fit snugly between the window and Minhyun’s warm side.

 

\--

 

Just two days after his midterms are over, Jonghyun gets a call from Nayoung begging him to fill in for her weekend classes. She’s up to her ears in assignments and practice with regional tournaments just around the corner.

“Just this once,” she pleads, and he immediately agrees. Honestly, the offer to work with them had sort of slipped his mind after he talked with Minhyun at the club, and he feels a little guilty that he never got around to helping out.

“I don’t know if I’ll be the best for the job,” he admits. “Maybe I could ask one of the underclassmen. I’m really out of practice.”

“It’ll be fine,” she says, “They’re at the age where all they care about is food and poop jokes. They won’t care if you’re rusty or not. Aaron runs all the drills, so you can just follow his lead and help him and Dongho out with demos.”

When Sunday rolls around, he catches a ride with Dongho to the gym, where Aaron’s already halfway through setting up the nets. It’s been a while since Jonghyun last wore shorts in public, so he procrastinates changing by loading the balls into two carts and checking each one for air.

By the time he finally strips off his sweats and swipes himself with some of Dongho’s deodorant, the first few kids are already walking into the gym. A few of them give him curious looks, but the majority are too sleepy or preoccupied chatting with each other to care.

It’s been too long since he last put on a pair of kneepads, he thinks as he pulls them past his calves and bends his legs experimentally. They’re awkward and stiff, restricting rather than protecting like they used to feel. He pulls them down a little, then up again, but he can’t seem to remember the exact position that made them so comfortable before. In a futile effort to calm himself, he ties his shoes too tight, even though he knows his feet will go numb in half an hour and he’ll have to loosen them again.

As soon as he picks up a ball and tosses it in his hand, Jonghyun knows it’s going to be a rough warm-up. Back in high school, he used to spend at least thirty minutes every day setting against a wall with a weighted ball to keep his fingers strong and flexible. Now, the calluses that used to cover his fingers and palms are almost completely gone, and his fingers are uncomfortably stiff. He feels embarrassingly creaky and weak as he goes through the standard set of stretches to warm up.

“You’re out of shape,” Dongho remarks as they finish up stretching and start to pepper. He laughs when Jonghyun doubles the second time in a row. “When was the last time you played?”

“The finals senior year,” Jonghyun admits. The kids are starting to stare at them as they keep the ball in the air. He can tell Dongho’s enjoying the attention by the way he smiles self-consciously, but it just makes Jonghyun feel awkward and fidgety. “So it’s been a while.”

Dongho whistles. “I would never be able to last that long without touching a ball.”

Jonghyun just shrugs.

 

All in all, the demos go fine. The kids are all pretty young, after all, and the level of play is easy for Jonghyun, even after nearly two years of zero practice. Aaron’s years of coaching experience with high schools is more than enough for the whole thing to run smoothly.

In the last half hour, they organize the kids into two teams and play a full two-set, six-on-six game with Dongho as ref. Aaron digs a worn scoreboard out of the equipment closet, and he and Jonghyun settle by the side of the court to watch. Jonghyun flips the score and Aaron takes notes on a clipboard for the next week’s drills, occasionally shouting out advice.

“Had fun today?” Aaron asks when one of the teams calls a time out. They’re only three points behind, but they’ve already gotten aced twice in a row and it’s a good time to break the flow of the game.

“Yeah, it’s been a while.” Jonghyun turns away from the court to look at him.

“You think you’ll come again?”

Jonghyun thinks. “I don’t know,” he says truthfully. “I like it, but…”

“But?”

“Something feels missing.” Jonghyun pulls his sleeves over his hands and fiddling with the ripped edges of the score cards. “When I set, it feels so impersonal.”

“Well, it’s not like there’s that much precision required to set two-balls for middle schoolers,” Aaron laughs.

“Yeah, I dunno.” Jonghyun plucks a ball out of the cart, setting it to himself a couple of times. It bounces up and down on his fingertips before he catches it again. “I guess I didn’t realize how much of my playing was tailored for our team until I stopped playing with everyone.”

“It’s always like that.” Aaron gives him a small smile. “With the way you and Minhyun were in high school, I’m not surprised that you miss the team more than you miss the playing.”

“Minhyun? What’s he got to do with it?” Jonghyun frowns.

Aaron hums thoughtfully. “We all loved volleyball and I know you gave that team your everything, don’t get me wrong. But there was something special about the way you set for Minhyun. Precise.”

“It’s like that for every middle I play with, though.”

“You play beautifully no matter who you’re setting, Jonghyun, but trust me when I tell you it was different with Minhyun. You guys had a connection, you know? It was practically art.” He leans back on his elbows, giving Jonghyun a knowing look. “The two of you were so dedicated to the team—to each other—it makes sense that you would feel empty when you graduated.”

“You think I miss setting for Minhyun?” Jonghyun looks down at the ball in his hands, turning it over and over.

“I think you miss setting for everyone,” Aaron says. “But I think you especially miss having something to tie you to Minhyun.”

Jonghyun mulls over that. If it had been from anyone else, he would have bristled at the suggestion, but Aaron’s always been observant, and he’s given Jonghyun a lot of good advice over the years.

Dongho blows the whistle to signal the end of the time out, and the players begin to scramble back onto the court.

“It’s natural to miss a connection like that,” Aaron says, “But volleyball is never going to replace a relationship with someone, yeah? He’s not going anywhere.” He pats Jonghyun on the back. “You should still drop by practice sometime though. The seniors still miss you.”

“Yeah,” Jonghyun says, a little surprised at how quickly he agrees. Aaron smiles again. “Yeah, I think I will.”

 

\--

 

Dongho and Jonghyun take the longest to adapt to their overnight fame, at the tail end of their second year. For Dongho, it’s the result of a longstanding effort to undermine the assumptions that come with his appearance—people think he’s aggressive and impulsive, and being known as an athlete does nothing to help with that impression.

For Jonghyun, though, it’s just a natural aversion to attention. He’s flattered, of course, to be known as co-captain of the regional champions, but it’s a lot of pressure sometimes to have to live up to the expectations. He isn’t naturally athletic like Seungcheol and Dongho, his features aren’t striking like Minki and Jeonghan’s, and he certainly doesn’t have the reserved, gentle grace that Minhyun and Jisoo seemed to radiant 24/7. He’s on the smaller side for a volleyball player and his hair has been cut in the same drab, easy-to-groom style since he was in elementary school and he always walks around a little hunched, with sleeves just slightly too big. He doesn’t look like a volleyball star, and he knows it.

In the interviews, he does his best for a few words and lets Seungcheol, with his gummy smile and handsome face, take over for the rest. In the hallways, he takes to walking a little behind Minhyun, letting his long legs and graceful stature take up everyone’s attention.

“You need to stand taller,” Seungcheol always tells him. “They need to be able to depend on us when we’re all down. We’re the backbone of the team.”

It’s not like Jonghyun doesn’t see the way the kids always turn to him first in the huddle when they’re about to play, the way they seek him out after practice to talk. He’s not as friendly as Seungcheol, but he’s thoughtful and quiet and listens well, so it works. It’s just, he doesn’t think he’s backbone material, exactly. He’s just a little too soft, a little too easy to bend. Still—for them, he tries.

 

\--

 

The thing about realizing you’re in love with your best friend is that it happens when you’re least expecting it.

One night, Jonghyun is lying awake on his bed after a few hours of Overwatch, and he can still see the afterimages of his avatar flashing against the dark ceiling. Minki’s already snoring softly across the room, and he can feel himself drifting, and then, out of nowhere, he thinks of Minhyun and wonders if he got groceries that afternoon like he said he would and also how nice it would be if he was around right now so Jonghyun could kiss him.

He ends up staying awake for the rest of the night, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling and imagining the exact texture of Minhyun’s lips pressed against his own. In the morning, he collects himself and clambers out of bed and meets Minhyun for breakfast like they’d planned days ago.

“Did you sleep well?” Minhyun asks.

“Yes,” Jonghyun lies around a mouthful of eggs, and that’s it.

 

Except it’s not.

“I can’t believe you waited until my off-season and then took an hour-long bus ride here just so you could tell me you were in love with Minhyun,” Nayoung says, taking a small sip of her coffee. Her expression doesn’t change, but it feels very judgmental. “You really couldn’t have brought it up when we had that video call with Seungcheol last week?”

“Minki was in the room with me,” Jonghyun says, fiddling with his sleeves. “He’s going to be insufferable when he figures it out.”

“Everyone knows already, anyway,” Nayoung shrugs, and when Jonghyun opens his mouth to protest no, not everybody, she says, “Yes, even the freshmen. Even the freshmen from _my_ team.”

Jonghyun takes a moment to process that. “Oh god.”

“Minhyun doesn’t know,” she says. “If that helps.”

“Not really,” he mutters, and then, after a moment of pondering, “Actually, never mind. That would definitely be worse.”

“So are you going to tell him now, or—”

“Nope,” Jonghyun purses his lips on the ‘p,’ “I’m going to pretend I never had this revelation. It’s going to go in the attic, just like when you walked in on me changing and that one time Minki made me eat a slug in elementary school—”

“—you’ve eaten a slug?” she frowns.

“Not the point, but yes. He always says it was a dare, but it wasn’t, I remember, even though I try not to. He basically forced my hand. He—”

“You should tell him.”

Jonghyun backtracks for a moment. “Minhyun?”

Nayoung nods. “You should tell him. You don’t really have a good track record with keeping secrets from him, you know?”

“Yeah, but—,” he flounders for a moment, picking at his muffin.

“Take a chance. You’re never going to know how he feels if you never ask him.”

“Okay, but what if it’s weird? We were on the same team before.”

“And you’re not on any team now,” Nayoung points out. “Besides, do you think it’s weird that I’m dating Minkyung now?”

“No, but,” he flounders, “I used to be his _captain_ —”

“See above.”

“Yeah, but,” he bites his tongue carefully. “What if he doesn’t like me back?”

Nayoung takes another thoughtful sip of coffee. After another few moments of silence, he realizes she’s not planning on answering. He eats a chunk of muffin.

“Let’s go to the gym,” she finally says.

He groans. “Literally, _why_?”

She shrugs. “Why not?”

He finds he can’t really argue with that. Well, actually, he can, but he’s really not in the mood.

“I hate you,” he says instead.

She gives him a small smile.

 

Seungcheol is standing in the kitchen when he gets back, making some kind of green gunk in the blender. Dongho has the cutting board out next to him, chopping carrots into small sticks.

“Oh, hey, you look like you just went to the gym,” Seungcheol says conversationally, only half paying attention.

“Yeah, I know,” Jonghyun says, staggering to the fridge and pulling out the orange juice he bought two days ago. It’s got Minki’s mouth-germs all over it—Jonghyun _saw_ him drinking straight from the bottle—but he’s too parched to care.

The blender stops and Seungcheol looks over and properly takes in his appearance. “Oh hey,” he says again, eyes widening a little, “you went to the gym.”

“I _know_ ,” Jonghyun says, collapsing into a chair by the counter. “Nayoung made me.”

“And you didn’t invite me?” Seungcheol pouts a little, pouring his mystery juice into a cup and setting the blender into the sink. “The three of us haven’t gotten together in so long.”

“We video-chatted just last week,” Jonghyun points out, and Seungcheol shakes his head.

“No, like, real-people interaction. In person.”

“Real-people interaction is overrated.”

Dongho snorts, “That’s what you always say when it doesn’t come to Minhyun.”

“Are you _serious_ ,” Jonghyun moans. “Even _you_ know?”

“Of course I know,” Dongho frowns. “Everyone knows. Even the freshmen. Even the freshmen on the _girls’_  team—wait,” his eyes widen, and next to him, Seungcheol gapes and drops his glass, spilling green slush everywhere. “Wait a second. _You_ know?”

“I mean, yeah,” Jonghyun admits weakly, “It’s why I went to go talk to Nayoung.”

“Oh my god,” Dongho mutters, “Oh my _god._ I need to call Minki, like, right now.”

“See, this is why I didn’t want to talk to any of you guys,” Jonghyun says.

“I didn’t say anything,” Seungcheol frowns.

“But you were thinking the same thing.”

“I wasn’t—,” he thinks, “Well, he _is_ your best friend.”

“Minki is my lifelong annoyance,” Jonghyun scowls, “Minhyun is my best friend.”

“You won’t have to worry about them having overlapping roles for long,” Dongho waves dismissively, “Once you start dating, Minki can be your best friend again.”

“If we start dating,” Jonghyun snorts. “Like that’ll ever happen.”

“Seriously?” Dongho pauses from where he’s typing up a storm.

“What?”

“You think he doesn’t like you back?”

“You think he _does_?” Jonghyun frowns. “He’s known me since he was twelve. He’s known me since _I_ was twelve.”

“Yeah, we know,” Dongho rolls his eyes. “We were all there too.”

“No one should want to date twelve-year-old me,” Jonghyun shudders.

“Yeah, except for all the other twelve-year-olds in our friend group,” Seungcheol says casually.

“ _What?_ ” Jonghyun gapes. “So you…”

“I’m pretty sure everyone had a massive crush on you when we were twelve,” Seungcheol says contemplatively. “Except for maybe Minki, but he’s always been hard to read.”

“That’s got to be fake,” Jonghyun says, but Dongho looks uncomfortable. “Really?”

“You were really friendly, okay?” Dongho says gruffly. “And I didn’t know you as well back then.”

“Wow, thanks,” Jonghyun rolls his eyes. “Anyway, none of you like me now, so doesn’t that just prove my point again?”

“But don’t you think it’s a little romantic?” Seungcheol smiles. “Falling in love with your childhood friend?”

“It’s a pain,” Dongho says. “It takes too long. Just look at Jonghyun. He’s made no progress in almost ten years.”

Jonghyun throws a piece of carrot at him.

 

\--

 

Throughout his third year, Jonghyun grows tenser and tenser as the weeks pass and the pressure mounts. They’re no longer underdogs—they’re _somebodies_ and he feels the expectations like a crushing weight on his shoulders in the brief moments he dares to stand still.

The one who saves him, in the end, is Minhyun.

It’s two weeks before their last regionals, and Jonghyun’s wound so tight, he thinks he might break every time he falls during practice. He has to be strong and he has to succeed and he can’t even talk to Nayoung and Seungcheol because they’re all in the same boat and wouldn’t it be unfair for him to unload all of his baggage on the two of them when they’ve all got enough on their own plates?

At lunch, Minhyun drags him to the roof and locks the door behind them.

“I don’t know what to do,” he says and bursts into tears.

For some reason, Jonghyun feels a lot less tight when he’s too busy trying to soothe Minhyun, who is private and strong and hates to cry in front of anyone else. When he finally calms down enough to speak again, he tells Jonghyun about the offer he got from a university recruiter two days ago.

“I don’t want to play,” he cries, “I don’t want to be the only one who gets to keep playing. I don’t even know if I still like it enough anymore,” and it breaks Jonghyun’s heart to see the way he hesitates to say it aloud, as if he thinks Jonghyun will judge him for it.

It takes all of one lunch period for Jonghyun to convince Minhyun that it’s okay to want to do something else after high school, and when it’s over, Jonghyun feels like he’s finally done something right in his life.

After that, they graduate and they don’t play much volleyball and people talk. They were supposed to be the miracle generation, the underdogs-turned-champions, and in the end, not a single one of them goes on to play in college. Despite all the talk—the gossip, the pity, the rumors—they learn to grow up and find new things to dream about, and it’s fine.

It’s absolutely fine.

 

\--

 

To Jonghyun’s horror, the workouts become a regular thing. Nayoung mentions the gym again in the group chat he has with her and Seungcheol, and Seungcheol latches onto the idea at once, dragging Dongho and Soonyoung and sometimes even Jihoon with him every Tuesday and Saturday, and Jonghyun can’t really bring himself to say no.

Seungcheol ends up making a group chat to make sure they all stick to the schedule, and someone (Dongho) names it _help jonghyun sweat out his crush_. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just a few of his high school friends who were in on this embarrassing secret, but they just won’t stop _adding people_. First comes Nayoung’s teammate from her university team, Sojung, who brings her roommate Yerin and Yerin’s girlfriend Eunbi. Then Aaron hears about it and wants to join, too, and then Dongho invites Daniel, Seongwoo’s boyfriend, because apparently, they’ve run into each other at the weight station well enough to count as friends. As if there still aren’t enough people at this point, Daniel adds Sungwoon, a guy in their study group who was looking for a buddy or two to motivate him to work out regularly, and in the end, because of the stupid chat name, they _all_ know about Minhyun.

“Hey, I heard about the whole thing with Minhyun, and I just wanted to say sorry you got rejected,” Daniel says with a sympathetic clap on the back the first day he walks in behind Dongho, and Jonghyun has to splutter out an explanation because no, he hasn’t even gotten to the point of telling Minhyun yet. By the end of it, Daniel looks about as embarrassed as Jonghyun feels.

“God, I’m so sorry. He probably has no idea you like him, he’s so oblivious. Does he talk about his crush in front of you as much as he does with us?” Daniel says, and Jonghyun nearly drops a forty-kilo weight on his own foot.

“His _what_?” Jonghyun chokes out.

“Oh yeah, that guy,” Sungwoon pipes up from his other side, “Minhyunnie always talks about him when he gets drunk. It’s kind of cute.” He pauses, clearly realizing that Jonghyun’s getting rapidly paler and paler. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, that was really inconsiderate—”

“It’s okay,” Jonghyun says, trying out a smile. From the look on Sungwoon’s face, it’s not really working that well.

After they wrap up, he gets a sweaty hug from Daniel as an apology, and it’s really nice and warm because his shoulders are super wide, except they both stink, so they have to separate before Jonghyun can really cry it out on his shoulder.

 

To Jonghyun’s great regret (and Nayoung’s infinite satisfaction), he has to admit that he feels better after exercising. He’s more energetic in the mornings and feels motivated to eat regular meals instead of intermittent snacking throughout the day. It feels good to make new friends in a stress-relieving environment, and Jonghyun finds himself opening their group message more and more just to chat about this and that throughout the day.

Another benefit of going to the gym regularly is that his arms and legs actually have definition again. The next time he wanders around the apartment in only his boxers and a loose shirt, Minki’s eagle eyes zero in on his thighs.

“Damn, Jonghyun,” he says, amused, “those squats are really working.”

Minhyun, who has a free afternoon for once and is currently eating Jonghyun’s gummies on his bed, begins to cough violently.

“Are you okay?” Jonghyun asks, alarmed.

“Went down the wrong pipe,” Minhyun says hoarsely. His face is tomato red from coughing.

“Minki, can you get him some water?” Jonghyun asks.

“Go get it yourself,” Minki shoots back. “I’m sure the weight of the glass will be no problem with your new biceps.”

“I’m fine,” Minhyun says, jumping when Jonghyun tries to rub his back. “You’ve been working out?”

“Yeah, at Nayoung’s gym. Why? Do you want to join us?” he asks before he remembers that the whole point of working out was to take a break from thinking about Minhyun.

“No, it’s fine,” Minhyun shakes his head, and if Jonghyun didn’t know better, he’d say that Minhyun looks sad.

“I can’t watch this,” Minki says as Minhyun leaves to get himself water.

“Can’t watch what?”

“Can’t watch you suffer silently every time he so much as smiles in your direction.” Minki shakes his head. “Are we even seeing the same person? This is the same Minhyun who’s had that weird laugh since he was twelve.”

“I _like_ his weird laugh,” Jonghyun realizes.

“That’s so sweet and disgusting,” Minki replies. “He sounds like a mechanical horse.”

“It’s so _cute_.”

“Then tell him.”

“Tell who what?” Minhyun asks as he walks back in.

“That Jonghyun thinks—”

“Nothing,” Jonghyun says quickly, shoving a foot in Minki’s face. Minki punches him in the thigh.

“Okay,” Minhyun laughs and Jonghyun can feel his heart squeeze up really, really tight.

“Ugh,” he says, and Minki laughs too.

“What is it?” Minhyun asks.

The nice thing about having a crush and knowing it, Jonghyun thinks, is that in between the bouts of hopelessness and dramatics, it’s nice to just feel. He looks back at Minhyun, who’s still waiting patiently for an answer, and he shakes his head, smiling.

“Nothing,” he says, and he lets himself enjoy the moment, even though Minki’s punching him again.

 

“You’re scared.”

“I’m not—”

“You’re scared,” Minki says again. “Why?”

“I’m not scared,” Jonghyun tells him firmly. “We just wouldn’t work out reasonably.”

“Yeah? Tell me why,” Minki challenges.

Jonghyun opens his mouth, and nothing comes out.

“Does that mean you have too much to say, or nothing at all?”

“I don’t know,” he admits.

“I think,” Minki says, “I think you’re scared that things will change.”

“Things have already changed, Minki.”

“Yeah, and you’re scared.” He raises an eyebrow as if he’s just proven his point.

“It’s just—what if it doesn’t work out?” he sighs, and the words just kind of spill out. “What if he doesn’t need me anymore? What if he does and we break up? We’ve known each other for so long—we’ve known _everyone_ for so long—I don’t think I could separate myself from him even if I wanted, but at the same time it feels like he’s been slowly removing himself from my life ever since the last point of that last game.” He shakes his head.

They’re both silent for a moment, processing his words.

“First of all, you’re not our captain anymore,” Minki starts, even though it’s a little bit of a lie.

He’ll always be their captain, even long after graduation. In a few years, everyone he knows will be out of high school and retired from the team, but there’s some orientation of the world—that tiny world of theirs—for which he and Seungcheol will forever remain the nucleus.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Minki says before he can even open his mouth to disagree. “And you know that we’re all growing up. We still need you, but not in the same ways anymore. This group isn’t going to break apart just because of you and Hwang Minhyun. You deserve to want him, Jonghyun. It’s in your every right to take this chance.”

He trusts Minki, even though his oldest friend has a tendency to come up with hare-brained schemes. Choi Minki is perceptive if nothing else, though, and maybe he’s just what Jonghyun needs in this moment.

“I don’t want him to leave,” he says.

Minki takes a deep breath. “I don’t think Minhyun could ever let you go, even if he wanted to.”

 

\--

 

Even back before there were championships and interviews and captainships and tears, they were Jonghyun-and-Minhyun, Minhyun-and-Jonghyun.

Back in middle school, they used to buy sweet potatoes from the stand two blocks down from the school gate every Friday night after practice. Minhyun always gave Jonghyun the very last bite of his, even though the very last bit is the best part because the sugar caramelizes just right and it’s sweeter and stickier and chewier than the rest.

“You grow too little for how much you eat,” Minhyun always teased, leaning an elbow onto Jonghyun’s shoulder.

In their second year, the old lady running the stand retired and her daughter moved it to a location across town. Minhyun was despondent for two days, until Jonghyun surprised him with two ice cream bars from the corner store on their way home.

 

The thing is, before Jonghyun was co-captain of the two-time regional champions, he was a pimply, awkward freshman who grew too little for how much he ate, and his best friend was hotter than the sun. Before he had the excuses of the team and captaincy and college to avoid thinking about his feelings, the explanation had been something a lot simpler: Jonghyun was scared.

 

\--

 

“I want my best friend back.”

It’s not a particular moment that triggers the thought so much more strongly than before, but rather a wave that breaks at an unpredictable time and place, just because. Jonghyun’s just gotten off the phone with Minhyun for the third time that week, and suddenly, it’s not enough. He wants to see Minhyun in person, wrap his arms around his waist and bury his head in Minhyun’s shoulder just so he can feel the vibrations travel through his whole body when Minhyun mutters something in his ear.

Minki looks up from the couch, raising an eyebrow. “So do something about it.”

“Fine, I will,” Jonghyun shoots back, grabbing his jacket from the coatrack and shoving his feet into a random pair of sneakers and checking his pockets for his keys and wallet.

Minki’s eyes widen. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious,” Jonghyun says, running out before he can second-guess himself.

In the end, the bus ride and subsequent walk from the station to Minhyun’s apartment is long enough to strip Jonghyun of almost all his courage. He hasn’t got a clue what he’s going to say, and he sure hopes no one else is at home to witness his stuttering.

Minhyun looks surprised when he opens the door and sees Jonghyun standing on the welcome mat, hands stuffed in his pockets.

“Hey,” he blows out a nervous breath.

“We were just on the phone,” Minhyun says.

“Yeah, but,” he swallows, “I just wanted to see you.”

Minhyun’s lips pull up into a smile, even though he still looks a little confused.

“Do you want to come in?”

Jonghyun nods, stepping into the entryway. The house is still and quiet behind them, and he guesses that no one’s home, unless Jeonghan’s taking a late afternoon nap in his room. Either way, he probably won’t hear if Jonghyun embarrasses himself.

“So here’s the deal,” Jonghyun says, “I want to stay friends with you.”

“I—” Minhyun looks perplexed. “Yes, I do, too, but what brought this on?”

“No, but, I don’t want to be the kind of friends that meets up twice a month to eat and never talk about anything important,” Jonghyun says, blowing out a huff of frustration. “I want to be your best friend, still. I want to see you in person and give you hugs when you’re down and talk you through your problems. I want to fight with you and be there for you when you cry and make new inside jokes, and I know—,” his voice cracks, “—I know I sound clingy, but I don’t want you to leave me behind.”

Minhyun gapes at him, mouth wide open.

“Sorry, that must have been really sudden,” Jonghyun smiles, even though he can feel himself tearing up a little. His hands are trembling, so he squeezes them together.

“God, Jonghyun, I didn’t know you felt like that,” Minhyun says softly, and then he’s stepping forward and pulling Jonghyun into a rough hug, big and warm. It feels just as good as he remembers, and he makes sure to wrap his arms around Minhyun’s waist and squeeze him tight. “I want that, too. This whole time, I thought I was the one being clingy.”

“You, clingy?” Jonghyun frowns. “Why would you think that?”

“We’re so much more separated from each other compared to high school,” Minhyun says quietly, his breath brushing Jonghyun’s ear. “We’re studying different subjects and meeting new people and making new friends and I don’t know, I just thought—” He cuts off, arms squeezing Jonghyun a little tighter.

“There’s nothing connecting us anymore, right?” He smiles when Minhyun pulls back and looks at him incredulously. “Yeah, I told Aaron the same thing.”

Minhyun laughs. “Seriously?”

“You’re my best friend, Minhyun, of course I’m serious,” Jonghyun tells him. “I do miss the volleyball, but I want you in my life no matter how old we are and what we’re doing. Being able to talk to you and see you on a regular basis makes me so, so happy.”

It means everything in the world to watch the smile widen on Minhyun’s face at his words.

“So we’re good?” Jonghyun asks tentatively, and he feels something ease inside of him when Minhyun nods.

“Yeah,” Minhyun says, biting his lip in a futile effort to keep his grin from getting any bigger. “Yeah, of course. Okay, I’m going to get some studying done now. Are you staying for dinner?”

“I think I’ll go back home,” Jonghyun shakes his head, and reality seems to rush back in around them. “I have class in the morning tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Jonghyun doesn’t imagine the slight slump in Minhyun’s shoulders. He scuffs his shoe against the ground, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“I’ll be going, then. See you on Thursday for breakfast?”

“Of course,” Minhyun smiles a little, leaning against his doorway.

“Okay, I’m going,” Jonghyun says again, and Minhyun wraps him in one more brief, but tight hug before he leaves.

Jonghyun only makes it halfway down the stairs before he’s running back, pounding on Minhyun’s door.

“Actually, I have one more thing that’s been bothering me for a while,” he pants in Minhyun’s surprised face. “It’s been on my mind for a few months now.”

“Jonghyun, are you okay?” Minhyun’s brow furrows.

“Yeah, I just—,” he licks his lips, “I’m just a little scared that things are going to change, you see, but Minki gave me some good advice for once, and I really don’t think I should waste it.”

“Advice?” Minhyun repeats, uncomprehending.

“Yeah, he told me to take a chance,” Jonghyun gathers as much confidence as he can muster and takes a deep breath and says, “Hwang Minhyun, can I take you out on a date?”

For a moment, Minhyun’s expression cycles between confusion and disbelief. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

“Is it that surprising that I like you?” Jonghyun says nervously. His heart feels like it’s going to fly right out of his chest. “Could you maybe just say yes or no or something?”

“But you said—I thought—what?” Minhyun says, a bit helplessly. “Aren’t you dating Nayoung?”

“Nayoung? What? No!” Jonghyun frowns in confusion.

“But you said—she said—you’ve been going to the gym together!” Minhyun yelps.

“Yeah, with, like, ten other people,” Jonghyun says, his nerves temporarily dispelled by a wave of dismay. “There’s a group chat, and we go on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Seungcheol’s in it, and so are Dongho and Aaron. I invited you to join, too!”

“I thought you were just being nice and didn’t want me to actually say yes!” Minhyun says, throwing up his hands. “You’ve liked her since we were in high school, Jonghyun! It was a logical conclusion to make!”

“I what?” Jonghyun blinks. “I never liked Nayoung.”

Minhyun blinks too. “What? But you were always together in high school. There was that time behind the gym, when you cried.”

“You _saw_ that?” Jonghyun groans.

“Yeah, I was going to call you in to start practice,” Minhyun looks away, frowning a little. “So if you didn’t like her, then what was that? I thought you were confessing or something, but you never ended up telling me about it.”

“I—I wasn’t going to tell anyone about that,” Jonghyun says, pausing to bite his tongue. Minhyun’s expression eases slightly at the familiarity of the tell. “We were doing badly at the start of the season and I was feeling really insecure and inadequate. I didn’t want to tell any of you guys because you needed me to be a strong captain and pull you all through, and I didn’t want to look weak.”

“Oh,” Minhyun says softly. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine. It’s over now.”

“You can tell me these things, though,” Minhyun says. “You don’t have to hold it in.”

“I know that now,” Jonghyun smiles a little. “But I didn’t like Nayoung in high school, and I’m definitely not interested in her now. She’s been dating Minkyung for, like, a year.”

“And I didn’t know because I haven’t been back to play with them since graduation,” Minhyun finishes with a look of slowly dawning realization. “Oh my god. Oh my _god_. I could’ve asked you out ages ago!”

“You wanted to ask me out?” Jonghyun can feel himself turning a violent shade of red.

“Yeah. For so long,” Minhyun laughs breathlessly. “Oh my _god_. I’m so stupid. We’re so stupid.”

“Don’t lump me in with you,” Jonghyun swats at him, but he can’t hold back his smile. “I was the one who got it together and confessed just a minute ago. Speaking of which, you still haven’t answered.”

“ _Yes_. Of course my answer is yes,” Minhyun says, expression softening. He wraps his arms around Jonghyun’s waist, lacing his fingers together behind his back. “I’ve liked you since we were twelve. I want to make you pancakes and wake up with you in my bed and take care of you when you’re feeling down. I want to be able to support you, and I want you to feel like you can trust me with your problems. If you think I would pass up the chance to go on a date with you, Kim Jonghyun, you must be even more oblivious than I thought.”

“Oh,” Jonghyun says faintly. “I think you hijacked my confession.”

Minhyun laughs and up close, the sight is breathtaking. He bites his lip, looking down at Jonghyun’s mouth. “Would it be tacky to kiss you before our first date?”

“Probably,” Jonghyun says. He should be embarrassed that they’re still standing in the entryway to the apartment that Minhyun shares with three other of their mutual friends, but he honestly can’t bring himself to care. He puts his hands on Minhyun’s shoulders and leans in. “But I don’t mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](heartsighcd.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
> uhhh i'll probably come back and make edits so this isn't as unbelievably cheesy, but this is it for now thank you for reading!!
> 
> 7/13/18: minor edits


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